Elections committee approves candidacy of extremist Otzma Yehudit leaders

The Central Elections Committee rejected petitions to disqualify candidates from the extremist Otzma Yehudit party from running in the September elections.

The decision comes hours after the committee okays the far-right party’s run.

But multiple petitions against its top leaders, Itamar Ben Gvir, Baruch Marzel and Bentzi Gopstein, were debated for hours more.

In an opinion sent to the committee earlier this week, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit backed letting the party run but urged that Marzel and Gopstein be disqualified.

The committee’s decisions are not final. Under law, they must be approved by the Supreme Court.

The court usually accepts the committee’s decision, but not always. Ahead of the April race, it overturned the committee’s decision and disqualified Otzma Yehudit’s then-leader Michael Ben Ari. The court has also in the past refused to disqualify Marzel after the committee voted to do so.

The petitions against the party and its leaders were based on a law that disqualifies any party or candidate from running if it openly incites to racism. Otzma Yehudit’s leaders are supporters of the extremist rabbi Meir Kahane, and have called in the past for Israel’s Arabs to be forcibly removed from the country and for interfaith weddings to be outlawed.